Earth
- Earth
Florida’s big chill may have hammered corals near shore
January cold snap caused rare wintertime coral bleaching and die-offs for Florida’s coral reefs.
- Earth
The FY 2011 budget: So much for transparency
Cabinet officials and other administration leaders met with reporters yesterday to outline the President’s Fiscal Year 2011 federal budget. That spending blueprint includes $147-billion-and-change for research and development programs. But in contrast to past years, details tended to be skimpy today — and any chance for followup or verification of apparent trends has proven more difficult than usual.
- Life
Keeping black bears wild
Wildlife managers compare ways to keep bears away from food and people.
- Climate
Water vapor slowed recent global warming trend
A decline in stratospheric water vapor has slowed Earth’s surface warming slightly in recent years.
- Earth
Dinosaurs, in living color
Researchers find microscopic structures in some fossils that may have held pigments.
- Climate
Indian climatologist disputes charges over Himalayan projection
London’s Sunday Mail reported that it had reached the author of a chapter in a purportedly authoritative 2007 climate-change assessment and learned that this scientist – Murari Lal – deliberately used unsubstantiated sources for conclusions about the rate of glacier melting in the Himalayas. Lal doesn’t dispute that mistakes were made – ones that likely exaggerated projections of glacier melting. But he does challenge the newspaper’s charge that those mistakes were politically motivated.
- Humans
Algae as biofuel still rough around the edges
Sources of nutrients, carbon dioxide can make or break this potential renewable fuel heavyweight
- Climate
IPCC’s Himalayan glacier ‘mistake’ not an accident
A London newspaper reports today that the unsubstantiated Himalayan-glacier melt figures contained in a supposedly authoritative 2007 report on climate warming were used intentionally, despite the report’s lead author knowing there were no data to back them up.
- Earth
Tsunamis could telegraph their imminent arrival
Telecommunication cables could give early warnings of giant waves.
- Earth
Feds propose banning giant snakes
Today, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service announced plans to ban the importation and interstate transport of nine species of giant snakes. It’s a good idea, but a little like closing the barn door after the horse — or in this case, the pythons and anacondas — got loose.
- Humans
Minor air traffic delays add up to big costs
On average, the economic impact of late flights exceeds that of hurricanes
- Climate
IPCC admits Himalayan glacier error
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change acknowledged today that it had erred in projecting the rate and impacts of retreating Himalayan glaciers in a 2007 report.
